Is the iPhone 3G Bad for Mac?

So I ventured out to an Apple Store yesterday hoping that since the iPhone 3G was a couple days old that I could easily grab one. No, not for me. For the girlfriend and my sister. I could have gone to the AT&T store only a few blocks away but whenever Apple releases a new product I prefer the full Apple experience at an Apple Store (Brea, CA); it’s just more complete that way. Expecting to get some hands on time with the iPhone 3G and pick up the Macbook Air again, I was pretty excited to get to the store.

As I cheerily walked through the mall eagerly anticipating the iPhone 3G, I stopped dead in my tracks. There was at least a 100-person line that stretched multiple storefronts! The Apple Store Employee ‘in-charge’ estimated the line to be a 5-hour wait! This was a Monday afternoon, didn’t people have work to do?

But it gets better (read: worse).

Read on for the rest of this very weird Apple Store Experience!

The iPhone 3G line wasn’t the only line! There was a ‘Mac-line’ for people who weren’t interested in the iPhone 3G but wanted to buy a Mac, play Frisbee with the Macbook Air, get free WiFi, or just do whatever you do at the Apple store. That line was at least a 30 minute wait—to just get into the store! This Apple Store was making potential customers willing to spend thousands of dollars on the iPhone 3G wait outside. Two different lines to get into an Apple store—just crazy!

Adding to the ridiculousness of it all, an Apple Store employee served as a ‘bouncer’ complete with a ‘guest list’ that presumably had genius bar appointments on it. I felt like I was in Hollywood trying to get into an exclusive club, not buy a computer at a computer store.

How is it good business making people wait to buy a Mac because of the iPhone 3G? Won’t it cannibalize sales of their other product lines if Mac customers have a difficult buying process? A few people in the Mac-line were already getting quite antsy and angry at having to wait. The Store employee gave me the excuse that the lines served as a safety precaution but the Apple Store looked pretty empty. I mean Apple Stores are almost always crowded, where are the safety measures then?

I understand a line for iPhone 3G customers, as insane as a 5 hour wait is, if you want to buy an iPhone 3G you have to wait your turn, that makes sense. But having a Mac line just to get into the store? That’s a little too exclusive, even for Apple. I can’t imagine how I would feel if I was ready to buy a Mac but had to wait outside the store because of the iPhone 3G. Just let me in the store! At least I’d be able to play with my future purchase.

What do you think? Is the iPhone 3G bad for the rest of Apple’s products? Is this Apple's way to Store different? Can Apple focus enough energy on all their products? Is two lines ridiculous or what?

Photo Note: The line on the left side is the 'Mac Line' and the line on the right that stretches all the way down is the iPhone 3G line. Picture taken with iPhone.

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Is the iPhone 3G Bad for Mac?

Definitely a very poor sales experience for would-be Mac buyers, I can't believe Apple, Rich Johnson in particular, would tolerate it after how much time and effort they've spent building the brand rep around haut-satisfaction. Crazy. Don't understand it.
So... White like Dieter and Chad, or Black like me? :)

don't feel bad. at least you have a store with phones. around here, we have no apple stores, and have to rely on att. I went to my local att store on the 12th, and not only were they sold out, they had no idea when the next shippment was coming!!! so, I was "forced" to order a phone, and wait. I have already received an email stating that my phone is "back ordered" (whatever that means) and I am sitting here wondering what the hell is going on. I am "upgrading" from my BB, and I am really wondering if I made a mistake.

Be happy to wait for 5 hours and go home with your new toy. Here in Europe it's completely sold out on friday only on reservations. Shops had an average of 10 to 15 iphones received for the launch... A next shipload is expected in 3-6 weeks, not days...
Seeing the waiting lines in the US and still having the iphones in stocks... guess US is more important for apple then Europe.

At least they were smart enough to make two lines. The Chandler Mall Apple Store in AZ had one single line. My old laptop crashed the same weekend as my home desktop (both PC's) so I figured it was time to upgrade everything. I would have had to wait 3 hours just to get into the store. Apple is lucky because the Best Buy next door has an Apple setup. We went there instead and were in and out. Needless to say, this fanboy's love for Apple was dimmed a little after this past week. i never thought I'd have to tell Apple to get their crap together.

The very same thing happened to me.
I went yesterday afternoon to Valley Fair mall (Santa Clara), and there was a several hour-long line! Also a separate non-iPhone line.
I couldn't believe it. I thought the lines would die down...

@dalh, I think Apple took the following approach:
1) They weren't entirely sure exactly what demand would be like in Europe. Thye knew it would be big, but I don't think ANYBODY expected the international demand to be this high, right off the bat.
2) I think Apple had a relatively good idea about the high level of demand in the US.
3) The US market is what allowed there to be an iPhone 3G in the first place. You take care of your base customers and THEN expand. iPhone is a viable product without Europe, it isn't a viable product without the US.
4) If demand is lower than anticipated in Europe and you have shipped a ton of iPhones over there, its much more expensive to have shipped them to Europe and then back to the US. Since all European iPhones have to be shipped from the US anyway, its much easier to have extra iPhones in the US and then ship them over to Europe if need be.
I understand its frustrating, but its a US product, you have to expect that they're going to take care of the US market, it just makes more sense. You'll get your iPhone in time. You don't hear Americans complaining when it takes 6 months to get the newest BMW while they're all over Europe.

It may look "bad" for Apple and I agree a more fluid process for things like activations needs to be the norm but think about what these lines are doing --
Name one other store other that the big box stores when the sell gaming consoles around Christmas or nearly every store the day after Thanksgiving. I can't even begin to number the times I have seem either a national news show like the Today show or a local news affliate reporting on the iPhone lines. Don't you know what these are? FREE advertising for Apple! The die hard fans don't mind waiting in line and it gets the attention of everyone else that this is something different.
It's like the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld where people would wait in line to have the best soup in town and yet have to endure the pefectionist owner.

I agree! I went to the Fashion Island, Newport Beach store, and although the non-iPhone line was much shorter, once I got into the store, I left after playing with the product(s) I was thinking of buying... I'll do it online instead.
Maybe Apple should have give beepers to people in line just like restaurants. Or they should require us to wear trendy black clothes with blondes in arm. Only then, would the bouncers allow us in and cut the line... perhaps?

When I was on line on launch day, the store I visited (Burlington, MA) had the long line for the iPhone, but once the store opened for its regular business hours, they let non-iPhone customers just walk in and shop as normal. In fact they probably only let about 8 iPhone purchasers in the store at once -- 4 or so were actively being put through the purchase process and another 4 on a short line behind them, where they could read the license agreements on nearby Macbooks. Only a tiny sliver of the store was taken up by iPhone sales, so I don't see how it would have been a bad purchase experience for any other customers if all stores were set up that way. In fact the guy behind me on line also needed to buy an iPod Touch for his fiancee, so while we were still waiting outside the store, he hopped off the line, went into the store and came back with it in just a few minutes.

I think this is a pretty ridiculous complaint.
First of all, the success (bringing new users into the mac market), and the apparent success (seeing hundreds of people in line) of the iP3G is going to be great for the Mac. Despite short-term inconveniences in the store, this will do nothing but drive up Mac sales. I can't imagine potential converts arriving and being turned-off by an overwhelming (if over-hyped) demand swamping the store ("honey, let's get out of here. Their products are just TOO popular")
As far as problems at the Apple Store during the first week of rollout, well, that's just going to happen. My Apple Store (The Domain, Austin) had a 5 hour iPhone line but they seemed to be letting non-iPhone customers in pretty regularly. Inside the store, it was a madhouse. I actually wouldn't have been surprised if the store had temporarily stopped "regular" business for a day or two just to expedite iPhone orders, or at least (as was your experience) trying to keep the non-iPhone crowd small enough for them to keep track of who was who. There were lots of things that could have been done better.

@WatersWest I was thinking exactly the same thing. It's like hearing 10 reports about massive traffic jams on a highway, ignore those reports and just go out and drive up that highway ending up being totally stuck and complaining you can't get where you want to go. And besides that, who still buys tech stuff in a physical shop? Order the damn stuff online. I even order my shoes online nowadays.

This iPhone 3G thing is SO poorly handled. When I bought the first iPhone (first night it came out in Clarendon, VA), it took me 4 minutes. I went this morning to the Apple Store in Fair Oaks VA at 8:15am. I was 12th in line. They must have started selling at 7:30. I waited an hour (remember, 12th in line) only to be work my way to first in line when they "ran out". They must have only had about 20 phones in stock, but 50+ people in line. Third grade math could figure out that most of the people wouldn't get one. But they seemed totally fine with me standing in line for an hour only to be sold "sorry, you need to come back later". Why couldn't they just be forward and say "hey, from this point back you may not get one," then I could take my chance to continue standing in line. By the way, 10 minutes before being told to leave, a another "associate" told me they had plenty of stock. In order to see a Mac, you also had to have an escort.
Apple really screwed this up and they are going to take a loyalty hit on this. There's no point in going to the Apple Store anymore, I'm just buying everything online.
I have to say, I've been a loyal Apple guy for 5 years, but this was one of the most disrespectful consumer experiences I've ever had.

I went to the Apple store on Friday but the line was over 300 long and I didn't have time to wait that day.
Saturday morning I went a couple hours early to the AT&T store and it was great. The manager came an hour and a half before they opened and told us how they would handle everything. He then went in and counted his stock, made a note for every phone they had, then passed the notes out to each one of us so that we wouldn't be waiting in line if they ran out.
It was really professional and I was pleasantly surprised. But it may have more to do with the store manager and not necessarily AT&T.

Well, then i'm lucky enough, because yesterday I was standing in line with just some eight people ahead of me. I was in a Telcel Customers Service Center in Ensenada, Mexico.
Friday was a crazy day to try to get an iPhone 3G, and i expected this monday to face something like that, but to my surprise it was not.
In just 30 minutes I was talking with a sales person and got an estimate for 8GB/16GB iPhone 3G.

I believe iPhone 3G is, potentially, a very bad move for Apple, but not so much for experiences like yours. I had a similar experience, and I am pretty disenchanted with Apple. However, I believe the weakest point now is the instability of the 2.0 software. Both my iPhone 3G and iPhone 2G (that I passed on to my boyfriend, updated with 2.0) keep crashing for no reason. We have tried all the fixes: restarting the phone, syncing again, uninstalling the applications and downloading them again, etc.
I did have one or two problems with previous firmwares when I was using my iPhone 2G, but it was never this bad.
The danger for Apple lies in the fact that thousands of people are having these bad experiences going to the store to buy their phone, and, on top of that, getting an expensive phone that does not deliver fully. I must acknowledge, I LOVE Super Monkeyball and other new additions, but the fact that the phone is SLOW, sometimes non-responsive, crashes, and it even reboots on its own, makes me think that this massive approach to business is making Apple look more like its nemesis, Microsoft. This is a lot worse than Vista, whether we want to face it or not!!! Oh... and the battery... I feel like I need to be anchored to the dock... which by the way I had to buy separately because it was not included anymore... Apple is evil!! Even more than Microsoft!

I'm thinking the lines and lack of 3G inventory are also bad for iPhone sales. I tried 2 AT&T stores and the Apple stores. No Deal - no iPhones - No Idea When! In the meantime Boy Genius just gave a good review on the Blackberry Bold. I think I'll hold for the Bold.

This is obviously due to fire code capacity laws. You can't just let 1000 people in a tiny store. Once you reach a certain capacity you have to count customers. When some leave some more can come in. There is no solution Apple can have other than get bigger stores, which seems silly given this is a temporary event. As to the issue about them being crowded other times, they might be, but the fire inspector is probably more likely to show up when the crowds are all over the news... :)

Still waiting for my phone to get shipped through "Direct Fulfillment" from AT&T... I keep checking to see if it has shipped yet, sometimes it has a 1 in the backorder column, sometimes not. It's driving me mad! Maybe I should just go to the store and see if they have any... After waiting 3 hours on Friday and being seven or eight back from the last "winner" at my AT&T store, I didn't try again!
I figured I might get lucky with this direct fulfillment thing, but it doesn't look too promising right now... Anyone else doing this?
(My first post, but been reading this blog religiously for about a month.)

I have been hoping for 3 things to be improved and unfortunately they have not been fully dealt with.
1- You can't set the sound of the alarm for the appointment reminder. You can't set it to vibrate or repeat. Prepare to miss meeting. The Palm beats the Iphone hands down here.
2- You can't sort your contacts by company. Again, the Palm wins.
3- A find feature has been added to the contact list and is helpful. Unfortunately it doesn't search the note field. So if you have a contact and list a note like doctor, electrician, plumber, etc. and can't remember the name, tough luck.
Hopefully the open app feature will get these issues resolved.

The people buying Macs were lucky. At my neighborhood at&t store, the personnel weren't allowing any CURRENT at&t customers in the store. They had to wait on the IPhone line to get in to do their business. So, let me understand this, if I had to pay my at&t bill, or had trouble with my existing phone, i have to wait on a 6 hour line to get serviced?
Gee, not only was at&t screwing potential customers (with a 6 hour wait), they were screwing EXISTING customers. I have alot to look forward too as a new at&t customer.
But I did get my white 16 gb iPhone on Friday!! Yeah! After a 6 hour wait (and I was only the 25th person on line).

Apple should have shipped at least 10 million iPhones to stores worldwide for launch day and 10 million per week thereafter. Nokia sells 10 million phones per week. Apple doesn't have the balls to match Nokia.

I got my Iphone 3g at the mall at short hills in NJ. I only waited for maybe 45 minutes on Sunday, around 5 pm... I have been using BB for 3 years, and I have to admit, I do like an iPhone, however they have a long way to make it better....
A Suggestion, if I may?
Start with the battery life.... Does not last for 24 hours... debating whether I should keep it.... or just stick with my BlackBerry

I went to the ATT store at the mall in Carlsbad Calif on Saturday morning around 1030. there was only one person in line in front of me, and they were only letting you in once a person left the store, I waited about five minutes. when i got in and talked to a sales rep. He went about getting all my information and then he told me that they were sold out and I would have to wait between seven and ten business days to receive my phone. they gave me a receipt and a web page to check on the status of my order, but every time I go to check it the system says there is no information on my order. I am just glad that i didn't wait 3-4 hours in line to be told that they were out of stock.

Dude! I understand it can be excruciating but be thankful u live in a place where there are Apple stores. I live in South Africa, where there is a thriving creative community and world-class standard advertising and design but despite the devotion to macs for years and years, the only way to get a mac is to order one through an authorised retailer, which up until the last few years were very very very very rare. I ordered an iMac back in 2000 and had to wait three months for the thing to arrive and go through clearance and all sorts of things. No kidding! I'd kill to be able to have to only wait five hours... sob!

Sorry, but your question is silly, and I'm surprised you asked it. I mean, it's almost like your whining about one experience at one Apple store during the release of one product (a huge product) then somehow extrapolating the experience company wide asking if their sales will hurt.
Its like asking if the long lines at the World series will hurt baseball.
Couldn't you have waited a day or two?

@Pat,
Check the e-mail address you gave to the rep you when you ordered the phone. You will get an e-mail from iCare or something like that. There will be an order number in that e-mail which you need to use. The one on the receipt doesn't work. I ordered on Friday and didn't receive an e-mail until Sunday, so it may not be there yet. But, don't worry, once you check the status, you'll see that it's on backorder.

Why would anyone wait in line at all for any phone? It's ridiculous how far society has fallen.
To the blogger: "I could have gone to the AT&T store only a few blocks away but whenever Apple releases a new product I prefer the full Apple experience at an Apple Store (Brea, CA); it’s just more complete that way."
I hope you're joking about the "Apple experience"...otherwise you're just stupid. Hopefully, somehow, the iphone will rekindle natural selection processes. Sure hope so, anyone willing to wait in line for the next gadget is the new definition for shallow.

@Tuna
I did receive the e-mail from icare on Sunday. But every time I try to look up my status it says it cant find any information about my order, I have tried all of the different methods on that dropdown menu. So i give up, I will just wait until I get a call from the AT&T store, Thanks for the tip though.

@Tuna
Well guess what, I got through to the status site, The guy at AT&T put there zip code in the shipping address instead of mine. I typed in the zip code for the store and bingo, there it is. mine says status: in progress FRT, qty 1 back ordered, phone 0

I went to 4, I repeat, FOUR, different Apple stores yesterday (yes, the benefits of living in the sf bay area) and all of them had the two separate lines. And I refuse to wait in another line after waiting in line for the iPhone on Friday morning. I think I'll just wait until this weekend for the lines to die down.
All I want is a iPhone compatible car charger....waaahhhhh! And maybe another case....who knows, that's why I just want to browse around the apple store and see things that I never knew I NEEDED!...but I guess I can't do that until these lines go away.hmph

One more thing, people saying thatthe lack of inventory for the iPhone is bad for sales is an erroneous critique. Look at the Nintendo Wii. When demand is always present, hype will continue to build and it's usually good for sales.
On another note, I was a BB user for 3 years and was going to wait for the Bold but I think that there's no way the Bold will even compare to the iPhone.

@Pat,
I forgot to tell you about the store zip code, sorry about that... Same thing I've had in the backorder column since Sunday... The value in the keeps going from 1 to 0, and I get my hopes up. Then it changes back to 1. I think it keeps changing when they get phones in, and then when they run out it changes back...
Hope you get yours soon. I'm hoping for tomorrow, but realistically I'm thinking I won't get mine until Friday or beyond...
P.S. To the bloggers, I love this site... Keep up the great work!

@Pat,
Check out this forum. Everyone in the same situation as you and me is posting here. Lots of info about what is going on, even a guy who works in the AT&T warehouse has been posting here.http://forums.cingular.com/cng/board/message?board.id=apple&thread.id=31...dateascending&page=280
I'm not sure of the rules, so if I'm not supposed to enter links, just let me know and I will refrain in the future.

@tuna
thanks for the web page, I read a few pages of it and it looks like everyone is having the same problem, i just checked my status and the phone went back to a zero, but the freight stayed the same. I also just called the AT&T number and it said that both were back ordered. So much for their up to date information, no wonder all these orders are screwed up, Thanks again for the web page

Well I called my AT&T store just now to ask if they had any 8 gig phones in and he said the they were back ordered, If I ordered one it would take between 10-20 business days to get it. He told me that people that had ordered there phones on Tuesday were getting calls today that there phones were in. I told him that i ordered my phone on Saturday and why haven't i got a call, He put me on hold and came back and said my phone wasn't in yet, and asked me if there was any problem with my order?
(how am i supposed to know, I have the receipt for it) and then he said that a big shipment is coming in tomorrow and that mine will probably in it. (yeah right)and I will get a call tomorrow morning from my sales person... We'll see...

Today, July 18 2008 I showed up at the Culver City Apple Store at 9:30am, the store opened at 10:00am. There were only 10 people in line but the manager came out and stated they had NO phones in stock and didn't know if they were going to get a delivery. To make a long story short, I waited til 10:00am and had put my name down to save my spot, and about 10:10am the manager stated they received 25 phones. I was out of the store by 11:30am with my black 16 gig Iphone.

@Pat,
I ordered mine on Friday at 11:30am, 8gb, and I got a message saying mine shipped yesterday!!! But, it looks like AT&T randomly gave some people priority overnight shipping on their phone, while others got standard overnight... right now, my phone is about 20 minutes away from my house/AT&T store, sitting in a sorting facility and won't be delivered until MONDAY because I didn't get priority shipping by AT&T... now I have to wait 2 extra days... Makes me sad :'-(

NICE ONE Dan!
If ONLY you lot put as much effort and emotional investiture as trying to obtain what is becoming such a sh!t despised renown train wreck of a product ("Mobile" with non existent battery life - THE IRONY ROTFLMAO!!!)into society and helping others instead of seeking such dumb superficial, and ephermeral buzz making (instead of long term emotional well being) selfish pleasure just think about the relative nivrana society could have been.
But there lies the problem...asking you to "think" with your level of superficiality - you wouldn't be degrading humanity with your embarrassing cult following if you possessed such an ability - you are no different from religious fanatics except at least they have some excuse - there is more chance they had NO choice about joining their cult being brainwashed by their parents beliefs as susceptible kids.
Also it SPEAKS volumes that the UK lines WERE 100% MEN not ONE WOMAN in those queues :o .....

The main problem is with store managers. They decide how to handle the lines and some are great at it, and some blow. If you had a bad experience at a store, it's not apple or AT&T's fault, it was the manager that was in charge of that store. (it's apples fault for under estimating) This is why we have posts saying they had a good experience and some saying they had a bad one. You said "The Store employee gave me the excuse that the lines served as a safety precaution but the Apple Store looked pretty empty." In your situation a good manager would have let mac people in the store up to capacity figuring in the few iphone customers actually in the store so you could play with the product your about to buy instead of staring at the back of someone's head. safety precaution?? we're gadget freaks not barroom brawlers. that store is run by a bunch of morons!

I would like to tell my AT&T/Apple iPhone story.....I had one in my hand(s) but couldn't buy it. I was so close.
I waited -- first for the new one....even though I needed a phone 3 months ago. I waited for the frenzy to subside a bit, so I wasn't waiting hours in line.
I was there - at the front - inches away from purchasing, having, using a coveed iPhone.
helpful Apple person: "hi - who is your current cell phone provider? AT&T. Phone number?.....ya di da...
I am sorry you have a "URG" number on your account - we cannot sell you a phone. You must go to a corporate AT&T store or call their customer service..... Next..."
ME: Help - excuse me....what. I am here to purchase an iPhone - MY iPhone that I have been longing for - for months. I am ready to upgrade my AT&T service, add data and to sign a new 2 year contract. :) I am here - I am ready to BUY.....please explain.
nice Apple person....Sorry, it has been our experience that if you have "URG" code on your plan that you have a discount associated with your account and we cannot add an iPhone for you. You must talk to AT&T. Next.
ME -- but they don't have phones.....you have phones...NOW. They would make me wait for weeks - they must be ordered. You have a phone now - today and I am at the front of the line. I am ready to give you my money, upgrade my service and my two year committment of more money!!!
nice Apple person ....Sorry, you must talk to AT&T.
ME: --- not a happy girl! I call AT&T from the Apple store....I don't want to leave - they say they will hold a phone for me if I can get this worked out.
AT&T tells me: Yes, you have a tiny weenie discount $14/month on your phone account with your family. Oh, it isn't on your phone - it is on your husband's phone. But yes, the nice Apple person is right, you must remove the discount from your account before you can purchase an iPhone. We can re-add the discount after purchase, but it will take one to two billing cycles for the discount to reappear. No, we cannot backdate the discount. You will lose potentially $28. And by the way, we cannot guarantee how long it will take for the discount to come off your account so that you can purchase the iPhone...could be 30 seconds, could take as long as 24 hours.
The only other option is to go to the AT&T store and order your phone from them....
ME: THEY DON'T HAVE PHONES!! I am in line - at the front of the line -- I am inches and a "URG" code away from being an iPhone owner/user extrodinaire.
Okay, the discount is on my husband's phone?! How
bout if I set up my own account?
AT&*T
Well in order for us to do that there would be an $18 transfer charge and we would have to have your husband approve the change.
ME: not a happy, AT&T customer....."forced" to go to the AT&T store, wait weeks for a iPhone. I can't even break my account off. This is absurd. I would need my husband permission to transfer off. Isn't this the liberated year of the woman! I can set up my own account but I cannot port my number.....
All of the above equals a very unhappy, frustrated AT&T customer, with NO iPhone. Hence, I write.
Dear AT&T -
I am about as unhappy a customer as you can get! I have been loyal to you through the years....@ 10yrs....
Because my spouse works very closely with you and your future technologies - we receive a little $14/mo. discount on our cell phone plan. I appreciate the discount - but I don't appreciate the monopoly you have created with regard to the sale of the iPhone.

I have been left with the option of waiting for weeks by ordering a phone thru you.....
OR

Losing $28 in discount....and it's not the money that bothers me. It is the 2 30-50minute phone calls that it will take for me to remove the discount...and then the second call to put the discount back on. It is the funny look that my husband will give me for the hassle.
If I walked into the Apple store and smiled at the nice Apple person and said.....I would like an iPhone and I am a new AT&T customer....I would be using an iPhone today.
Where is the logic in turning away....new data business - a new 2 year contract. Mr. Business Man, Corp. America...where is the logic in turning away a customer -with money in hand?
All this happened a week ago -- I still don't have an iPhone - I still want to buy an iPhone. But thanks to corporate run-around non-sense....I haven't had the gumption to go for it again. those new blackberry's thru Verizon are looking real tempting..... and btw, please don't threaten me with the "service contract fee".....I am long beyond that. Just fix this mess

Kind regards,
Elizabeth
Dear Steve Jobs!
How are you? I feel as if I know you since I have been a loyal Apple customer since the first MacIntosh.
I didn't buy the first iPhone - sorry, my husband convinced me that I should wait for version 2. Here I am trying to buy version 2. Please read above. What a mess of corporate bureacracy. I am confident that when you set up this corporate deal with AT&T and this latest launch - you wouldn't have agreed to this.
I have this confidence because I know you want to attract the "enterprise business customer." The new apps offered with the phone and the ability to make enterprise level upgrades etc. You want the corporate "Blackberry" business.
If you are courting business from the "business community" why wouldn't you make it easier for us with a business discount to get this new toy in our hands?
I am a recruiter - I talk to technolgy people all day long - I don't think you want me telling my iPhone corporate bureaucratic story.....ease of use, ease of interface, streamline, efficiency. I think all of these adjectives are/were part of the plan. Unfortunately, not my experience.
Steve, please look into this problem. It is a corporate disservice....it is making you look bad.**
We want the phone - but how much pain will we endure to get it?
**PS> 2 people in line behind me - just that day - in that same store. Had the same "URG" code issue. One guy had gone to the AT&T store to have his "discount removed". He was red-faced and panting 'cause he had rushed back and was trying to get a phone before they ran out again.
It is more common than you think. I am just a little business woman - potentially the corporate decision maker of tomorrow. Certainly, the household decision maker today.
Thanks Steve - I know you will do the right thing. Isn't that why you went back to Apple - ?
Kind regards,
Elizabeth

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